Received this in the mail today: a check for $2950.00, from the "East Texas Oilfield Pump & Supply, 7660 S. US Hwy 79, Palestine, TX 75801" (the bank is "East Texas National Bank"). The signature on the check appears to be "Ken Brook." Exciting stuff. Along with it was this letter (on nice "certificate" paper):

WORLD-WIDE LOTTERY PROMOTIONS

CERTIFICATE OF AWARD

Apr 1st 2007

CLAIM No. 712-800-45

(logo of a blue hand "crossing fingers" that looks like a smilie face)

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT:

(my fakey name I used via a MyPoints survey)

After a successful completion of the third category draws of The World-Wide Lottery promotions, held at London, England, we are pleased to inform you of the official announcement today that you have emerged one of the winners, which is part of our promotional draws.

Participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from 8,000,000 names and addresses of individuals from ASIA, EUROPE, NORTH AMERICA, and SOUTH AMERICA as part of our International Promotions Program. Your name emerged as one of the winners and consequently won in the Third Category. You hereby awarded [sic] a lump sum pay out of USD $65,000.00, which is the winning payout for third category winners. This is from the total prize money of US$1,560,000.00. [sic]

Assistance check of $ 2,950.00 [sic] has been enclosed to enable you to finance the international clearing fees. Your clearance fees shoudl be remitted to our designated agent. Consequently, you will receive a total of $58,150.00 minus $3,900.00 (6% Sponsor's Commission plus TAX). Your agent will give you further details.
We ask that you keep this award from public notice until your claim has been processed and the money remitted to your account, as this is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming or unwarranted taking of advantage of the program by the participants and public.

To finalize your claim, contact your claim agent, RICHARD GATES of HANSON Financial Management Group at 902 Liberty Avenue Suite 114, Winnipeg, MB R3C 6H7 an accredited agency to the Lottery Board at TEL: 1-780-695-7518

Note that all prizes must be claimed not later than April 18th, 2007. Once again CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

JOAN ILAN (PRIZE DIRECTOR)

A couple of points:
*I looked up "Hanson Financial Management Group".... there is one in St. John, but not Winnipeg.

*I looked up "East Texas Oilfield Pump & Supply" and mysteriously enough, Google has never heard of it. (East Texas National Bank in Palestine, TX, is apparently real).

*Weird that the check is from Texas, but the "world-wide lottery" (which I never entered) claim agent is in Canada.

*The letter was dated April 1 and the logo is a hand with "crossed fingers."

*The fakey name it's addressed to is my fakey name I use to detect junk mail.

*I am 110% certain that if I were to deposit this check, it would bounce sometime AFTER the April 18th deadline to send $2,950.00 to this bastard in Canada. Then I'd be out $2,950.00 of my own money.

*Even if I DID deposit the check and NOT send the amount to the lying bastard in Canada, would my bank information would somehow be sent to them? That couldn't be good.

I'm sure there's nothing I can do, per se, about this, but damn it pisses me off that there are people out there who actually fall for this scam, every day. $2950.00 is not an insignificant amount of money to just have stolen from you.